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Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
11–20 of 59 posts
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#12CHOMSKY: First of all, I'm usually fuming inside, so what you see on the outside isn't necessarily what's inside. But as far as questions, the only thing I ever get irritated about is elite intellectuals, the stuff they do I do find irritating. Oh, the irony
I don't trust a scientist who's "usually fuming inside". People who fume inside are people who are already pretty sure they're right about everything, which is not an appropriate disposition for a scholar.
I passionately disagree that the intellectual must remain dispassionate. But what you are saying is in fact considered a rarely challenged truism in humanities departments. It is considered very distasteful for an academic to speak publicly about current events, politics, or really anything controversial. But I think, and I know there is a very strong anti-academic current here on HN, that the intellectual plays a similar role to the free press in a democratic society. He is morally obliged to speak out when he sees the society being duped, coerced by the powerful, or being robbed of its freedoms. The academic intellectuals repeatedly fail us in this in the United States, and I admire Chomsky because he is one of the very few with the integrity to perform his moral duty.
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#13CHOMSKY: First of all, I'm usually fuming inside, so what you see on the outside isn't necessarily what's inside. But as far as questions, the only thing I ever get irritated about is elite intellectuals, the stuff they do I do find irritating. Oh, the irony
I don't trust a scientist who's "usually fuming inside". People who fume inside are people who are already pretty sure they're right about everything, which is not an appropriate disposition for a scholar.
Sorry, but that's wrong. If two people have read a book and disagree about the meaning of a given section, then it's perfectly reasonable to expect both sides to be dispassionate as they dissect the passage in question. But what Chomsky is saying (in the context of this article) is that it makes him angry when people disagree with his interpretations of books they haven't read.
When you say scholars should be dispassionate about this, you're basically saying that a book review written by someone who hasn't read the book should be treated with equal respect as a book review written by someone who has. This seems profoundly anti-intellectual to me.
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#14So, you go back to the mid-nineteenth century and these so-called "factory girls," young girls working in the Lowell [Massachusetts] mills, were reading serious contemporary literature. They recognized that the point of the system was to turn them into tools who would be manipulated, degraded, kicked around, and so on.
Source? My impression was that the point of the system was to make money, and that the girls were adequately treated ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls ). The main thing that sucked was super long hours. Many of the Lowell girls came from family farms that had too many mouths to feed. If a family produces more children than the farm can support, there is no escaping the hard life, no matter the political or economic system.
It was done mostly by courts and lawyers and the power they could exercise over individual states. New Jersey was the first state to offer corporations any right they wanted. Of course, all the capital in the country suddenly started to flow to New Jersey, for obvious reasons.
The corporation is a construct of contract law. There is no reason for it to be ratified by legislation. And contract law simply allows for scalable, voluntary transactions. And scalable voluntary transactions allow people to build large productive organizations that make stuff people want - cars, lightbulbs, transistors, etc.
It was a conscious design which worked as Adam Smith said: the principal architects of policy consolidate state power and use it for their interests.
No argument here. But note that this is basically an immutable law of history. You'll have the same luck ranting against it as ranting against "death and taxes". That's why anarcho-anything is a dead end. If you write abaout political matters with a goal of influencing policy, you're best off coming up with ideas that are mutually beneficial to both the state and the public.
It's basically court decisions and lawyers' decisions, which created a form of private tyranny which is now more massive in many ways than even state tyranny was.
That's simply false. And the massive corporations that seem most soulless and Dilbert-like, often are basically arms of the state ( ie, government contractors like IBM).
A lot of the educational system is designed for that, if you think about it, it's designed for obedience and passivity.
Once upon a time the idea of the school system was designed for obedience and passivity. But Supreme Court cases in the 1970's have made effective discipline in schools impossible. As a result, the education system circa 2009 is Lord of the Flies.
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#15Flagged; flamebait.
I must be new here, this is first time I've seen a post [dead]. Does this count as "the community defending itself"? This article was the top link when I first saw it, I found it a good read. Not even any distracting ads.
Anyone have a link to the list of [dead] articles?
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#16Flagged; flamebait.
I must be new here, this is first time I've seen a post [dead]. Does this count as "the community defending itself"? This article was the top link when I first saw it, I found it a good read. Not even any distracting ads. Anyone have a link to the list of [dead] articles?
I believe there is a "showdead" feature.
Seriously, tho', Chomsky? Would an Ann Coulter diatribe last as long?
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't trust a scientist who's "usually fuming inside". People who fume inside are people who are already pretty sure they're right about everything, which is not an appropriate disposition for a scholar.
I passionately disagree that the intellectual must remain dispassionate. But what you are saying is in fact considered a rarely challenged truism in humanities departments. It is considered very distasteful for an academic to speak publicly about current events, politics, or really anything controversial. But I think, and I know there is a very strong anti-academic current here on HN, that the intellectual plays a si…
Being passionate != thinking you're right about everything.
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#18CHOMSKY: First of all, I'm usually fuming inside, so what you see on the outside isn't necessarily what's inside. But as far as questions, the only thing I ever get irritated about is elite intellectuals, the stuff they do I do find irritating. Oh, the irony
I don't trust a scientist who's "usually fuming inside". People who fume inside are people who are already pretty sure they're right about everything, which is not an appropriate disposition for a scholar.
"People who fume inside are people who are already pretty sure they're right about everything"
How does that follow?
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I must be new here, this is first time I've seen a post [dead]. Does this count as "the community defending itself"? This article was the top link when I first saw it, I found it a good read. Not even any distracting ads. Anyone have a link to the list of [dead] articles?
I believe there is a "showdead" feature. Seriously, tho', Chomsky ? Would an Ann Coulter diatribe last as long?
I love the idea that Chomsky fills the Coulter niche for a certain audience.
Re: Noam Chomsky: Education is Ignorance (1995)
#20Flagged; flamebait.
I must be new here, this is first time I've seen a post [dead]. Does this count as "the community defending itself"? This article was the top link when I first saw it, I found it a good read. Not even any distracting ads. Anyone have a link to the list of [dead] articles?
Me too. It really shook me to the core when it suddenly turned up dead since I found it such an interesting read, and I couldn't understand what seemed to be arbitrary deletion.
I guess I gotta read more about HN works and why such things can go from #1 to dead in moments.